Note 502 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
‘… Ita ut Nero se puero gravidum existimaret…. Tandem dolore nimio vexatus, medicis ait: Accelerate tempus partus, quia languore vix anhelitum habeo respirandi. Tunc ipsum ad vomitum impotionaverunt, et ranam visu terribilem, humoribus infectam, et sanguine edidit cruentatam…. Unde et pars illa civitatis, ut aliqui dicunt, ubi rana latuerat, Lateranum, à latente rana, nomen accepit.’ Matthæi Westmonast. part i. p. 98. Compare the account given by Roger of Hoveden, of a woman who vomited two toads. Script. post Bedam, p. 457 rev. In the Middle Ages there were many superstitions respecting these animals, and they appear to have been used by heralds as marks of degradation. See Lankester's Memorials of Ray, p. 197.